Will fans of the EU establishment be quite so keen on unaccountable, centralised institutions when their opponents start appointing commissioners?
Merkel is threatened. Macron is outraged. Brussels is paralysed. And all three trends are taken by their opponents as signs that they are winning.
British commentators who jumped to condemn his decision as a travesty of democracy failed to understand the country’s constitutional traditions.
If Italy really is to make a radical, momentous break with the Euro, sooner or later, voters should explicitly endorse the move.
Some Italians hoped Brexit would make Brussels realise it had gone too far. Instead, the EU elite has doubled down, regardless of troublesome voters.
One day the country’s voters may dig in against the long squeeze imposed on them from northern Europe. But don’t be too sure it will happen yet.
The election result was simply voters’ latest desperate attempt to send political elites at home and in Brussels a final warning.
The vote split along geographic and political grounds; it is hard to see how any proper government can be formed between competing brands of populism.
Storming results for the Five Star Movement and the League pose big challenges to the established structure of Italian politics, to the EU, and to the left more generally.
They see one global trend when in fact there are many different national shifts underway.
Traditionally, a technocratic government would now steer the country through choppy waters. But this time that could lead to more instability.
The referendum was meant to be about constitutional reform. Instead, it’s become an anti-politics storm which could have wide-reaching consequences.
It is not so much like a parent or a nanny as a brother. Not Big Brother, to be sure, but Little Brother – to be treated both with sibling rivalry and understated love.
Here in Britain, the two main parties are being punished by voters for tearing up their Brexit commitments.